What am I looking at?
Have you ever opened your Instagram to something that completely disagreed with you?
Maybe at first glance, you felt like you don’t measure up in life? In my article about selfies, I explained this was the first time in history; we are in direct control of our image. With this control, we tend only to share photos of our greatest moments, best side, perfectionist health habits, beautiful places we visit, and of course, when our butt looks great. The idealized view has shown to be problematic when we start to have negative effects such as anxiety, changing daily behaviors, or have trouble living an authentic life.
The Like Button
“Hegel quotes, world historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as a tragedy, the second as farce.” – Karl Marx.
If Facebook was the tragedy, Instagram is the farce.
Historically the proliferation of images: beauty, wealth, and romanticized scenes within society is not new with the invention of Instagram. In the 19th century France, only the wealthy could afford commissioned artists to paint what they wanted. Idealized images of the self, ownership, and society’s chosen religion were mainstream commissions. By midcentury, the French revolution was full force, and artists had grown tired of the bourgeois image and began reacting. Some artists chose to “unplug” the same way many individuals have with Instagram. They bleakly stopped displaying artwork publicly. It is a blatant robbery of society when someone cannot truly express themselves.
Have you ever deleted an instagram post because it did not get as many likes as you thought it would?
When we post a photo, we enter a gamble phase. We share a small piece of ourselves and are searching for validation whether we admit it or not. It’s nice to be liked. Cognitive neuroscientists have shown that rewarding social stimuli ie laughing faces, positive recognition by our peers, and messages from loved ones; activate dopaminergic reward pathways. Smartphones have provided us with a virtually unlimited supply of social stimuli, both positive and negative. Every notification, whether it’s a text message or a like on Instagram has the potential to be a positive social stimulus and dopamine influx. (Haynes, Harvard University 2018) The reward we receive as an Instagram like has the same euphoric effect we feel from taking drugs or winning while gambling. This need for reward is changing the content we post. As far as science goes, we are moving in the direction of posting what others like to receive these dopamine rewards, rather than who we really are. This is troublesome in the areas of self-identity, authenticity, and addiction to stimuli that is not even real. Have you ever experienced phantom notifications?
Social currency pre-smartphone was our networks of personal and professional contacts we knew as friends, friends of friends, and our family. With the rise of social media, social currency changed not unlike dramatic inflation. Remember when a million dollars was a lot of money, the change in the way we socialize is similar to this monetary inflation. Poppy Jamie’s TedX talk affirms that most of us gauge a person by their digital identity more than their in-person presence. “We are running our Instagram accounts like marketers.” (Jamie TedX 2016). Rachel Brathen, a Yogi that lives in Aruba posts to Instagram beautiful beach photos with herself in yoga poses, she has shed light on this phenomenon of a perfection loving society. She talks of losing thousands of followers over a shot of tequila with dinner after a long bad day. How could a yogi drink alcohol? (Brathen Tedx 2015).
If you are an average Instagram account holder, your feed has some influencers, celebrities, and people with beyond lots of followers within your personal interests. Your average influencer does not step outside their chosen focus. Some influencers buy followers to start their massive audience. On top of perfection, massive pressure for followers, and being pegged as one focus- companies are using these influencers to weave products into their organic content. We as humans have a hard time believing this completely contrived thread of photos as authentic. Are these influencers going beyond who they really are for marketing and dopamine gratification? Is it possible to be an influencer and be authentic?
Why does it matter if it’s all just a show? We watch tv, movies, read books and we know that it’s fiction. We are entertained by fantasy. Is this what is happening here only on a problematic basis as we think it’s reality? In the past, advertising has caused body image problems and kids to start smoking. It’s only when someone really digs into an advertisement do we notice what it is subliminally doing to us. Softsoaping, greenwashing, slippery slope; are terms you may have never heard. Start picking apart advertisements and what they are trying to influence you to do. You may discover these terms with a dose of enlightenment. BUY ME. DO THIS, DON’T DO THIS. Influencer marketing was thought to be special in the same sense as a professional athlete wearing an endorsement shoe. These people were already using the product, it’s not an ad, it’s authentic.
Cognitive dissonance
WTF is that?
It is the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change. (Oxford 2019). Cognitive dissonance describes the distressing mental state people often feel when they find themselves behaving in ways which don’t fit with their self-image, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold. (Denniston 2017) Cognitive dissonance can be felt when we do something to fit in or does not agree with our core values. For me this was a friend asking me to take a photo she wanted to post to Instagram. When I commented back, I wanted no part of it, as the photo content and the glorification of it does not agree with my core values, she got angry. I felt guilty and wrong for standing up for my values. This is cognitive dissonance. Why was what I said or felt or did wrong?
Why is being authentic so important?
When we are authentic we have less cognitive dissonance. We question ourselves less and are happier because of it. In general, the more a person acted authentically, the more likely he or she was to be happy and experience subjective and psychological well-being. (Brafman 2018)
Have you ever heard, we as human beings are are absorbing influence from the five people we spend the most time with?
A social influence study by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler found that we are influenced by much more than five people surrounding. The two researchers found that happy friends make you happier, 12% to be exact. But if a friend of a friend is happy with their life, you have a 6% greater likelihood of being happy yourself. Six percent might not seem like much but consider that other studies suggest if you receive a $10,000 raise that would only trigger about a 2 percent increase in happiness. (Burkus 2018). In other words, we are much more than the five that surround us. We are those five people and then some.
Just unplug?
My brother and I were sitting at lunch, discussing this writing piece. We talked about influencer marketing a bit, and his prediction concluded with Instagram marketing and engagement would begin to decrease soon. I had my doubts until reading – influencer engagement is nearing an all-time low, with micro-influencers (those with followings smaller than 5,000) have the strongest engagement growth. In an influencer survey conducted by Hit Search, “ 98% of respondents admitted to having spotted an individual’s Instagram follower count rise in an unnatural manner or over a short period of time, alluding to using bots to grow quickly or having bought a mass number of fake account followers”(Lurillo, 2019). The lifetime and follower counts are something users look to for validity and authenticity within an influencer account. Meanwhile, to combat some of the attributes causing psychological issues, the Royal Society for Public Health is backing a government-issued plan which includes the disclosure of altered photographs, hiding photo likes, and taxing the social media platforms to establish and fund the Social Media Health Alliance. (RSPH, 2019)
Post it for you, not them.
Social media has incredible potential to connect us with the same capacity to tear us apart. After watching 12 Tedx talks and reading over 45 articles all culminating their discourse with ways to successfully navigate a social media platform. The messages echoed from vlogger to writer including these common themes which I very much agree.
